It was a beautiful sunny day with bright blue skies and a light onshore wind. It seemed like the perfect time to go for another nice sail through the Bay of Islands. It didn’t feel at all like we were finally leaving the whole country in which we had spent the last half year. It was also a bit strange to think we would be underway for over a week instead of the usual day and overnight sails along the coast. We even had a pod of dolphins that stayed with us for a nice, long farewell.
Our only real problem was the onshore winds. To get away, we would have to be tacking for a while. The winds were stronger up north, so we decided to get it out of the way early. The wind was light enough that our forward motion made for a nice cooling breeze, at least during the warm part of the afternoon, and the seas were small enough to glide right over.
Going the “wrong way” half of the time was a little disheartening. Because of the orientation of the North Island, our port tacks had us paralleling the coast toward Auckland, and slowly at that. On my first night watch, I could still clearly see both Cape Brett and Poor Knights lighthouses to starboard. That would have been great if we had been trying to sail to Whangarei. We had to keep reminding ourselves of the big picture. Pointing at Tonga was not the best way to get there. We needed to get east first and we were slowly doing that. Whangarei is south of Opua, but it is also a little bit east, so we were actually making progress, even though Tonga was actually way over the horizon on our port quarter and getting further.
We were able to enjoy some great sunsets
And some NZ candy: Pineapple Lumps - thanks Dave & Lyndon
After two days, we finally made it past 176° East and I decided we had finally made it far enough east that we should be able to make it all of the way to Tonga without having to tack anymore. We still needed to be close hauled on a starboard tack, but at least we could start going north as well as east.
As we went north, the air and water slowly got warmer. The wind and seas also built, which made things less comfortable aboard. We were still heading upwind of our destination as a hedge against even stronger winds further north. I didn’t want us to fall victim to an unfavorable wind shift that would require us to bash into 25-knot winds.
So, two days later on Day 5, we had finally made it far enough upwind to bear off the slightest amount and start a curving path towards our destination. We only turned a degree or so about every three hours. The change wasn’t noticeable at first, but after a day or so, we had eased out the sails enough to be going much faster and we started rolling over a small percentage of the waves rather than bashing headfirst into all of them.
On Day 6, as we were sailing across the Kermadec Ridge, we actually came close enough to spot two of the islands in the group, Cheeseman and Raoul. The Kermadec Islands look on a map like a logical place to stop on the way between New Zealand and Tonga, being pretty much on the rhumb line. It may be for motor vessels, but for sailboats they’re usually in the wrong wind pattern going either way. Our getting close enough to them to see them was a lucky coincidence due to our unusual wind direction and the way we were choosing to deal with it.
It would have been great to stop for a few days and wait for the wind to swing around for us, but it wasn’t to be. Just on the off chance that we may be this way, we had previously researched what would be required for us to arrive legally at this protected wildlife preserve. The long list of requirements is so onerous as to be effectively impossible for us since, for example, we could not provide proof that our bottom paint had been newly applied within the previous five days. So, we had to just watch wistfully as the two big chunks of rock disappeared behind us over the horizon.
Mixed seas for the passage - it was great to finally see land again!
By Day nine, the wind was hovering just under thirty knots. By then we had borne away from it to a 70° apparent angle (from dead ahead). That was from the 40° we had been sailing at the beginning of the passage. Since our forward motion creates a bit of a headwind, that meant we were pretty much beam to the waves. Most of them would slowly roll under us, but every tenth wave or so would be slightly higher or from slightly more ahead. These would break just above deck height and send a shin-high wall of water racing backwards over the boat. Our cockpit enclosure deflected most of it, but it’s not watertight, so we invariably ended up with a shoe or a lap full of water if we didn’t jump out of the way quickly enough. Any excursion outside of the cockpit resulted in an immediate dunking. Going forward of the mast would have been like walking into a car wash. Nothing up there ended up needing either of our attention during the worst of it though, so we were saved that indignity.
We had about a day and a half of this misery before things finally started calming down slightly. By then, we were passing sixty miles east of Tongatapu and had bent our course further to where we were surfing quickly with the wind and waves slightly behind us. The leftover seas were still over three meters and I was worried what the transition from the deep ocean to the shallow shelf of the Vava’u group was going to be like. Tonga has lots of areas on the chart labeled “Blind Rollers”. These are areas where underwater features make big surf seem to randomly appear out of a calm sea. (see Kelefesia – Oct. 2018). I had studied the charts very carefully when I planned our approach, but we still had to go between these areas, all of which are depicted in a very vague way. That makes it hard to know for certain if we’re skirting them or avoiding them altogether or passing through two areas that overlap.
I slowed down a bit on my last night watch, just to make sure we had good daylight for the crossing into shallow water. I wanted to be able to see any trouble in time to turn tail and get the hell out of there if necessary.
It turned out to be fine. All of that worry and no drama… I suppose it’s better than having it the other way around. We had lots of breakers on both sides as we wove our way further into the group. They took the energy out of the sea until we were eventually gliding past palm-covered islands on flat water. We made it to Neiafu just after lunchtime, where we tied up at the Customs dock next to a fishing boat that looked like it was in no condition to go anywhere.
We were the only arriving yacht, so Customs, Immigration and Biosecurity met with us right away. All that was left was the Health Inspector. We were told to wait, he would be by soon. We busied ourselves with arrival jobs for a bit, but when it seemed like business was about to conclude for the day, I went and checked again. I was told we would have to wait until tomorrow. We could come by on foot and we were free to leave the Customs dock and go about our normal business until then. Just don’t take down our Q flag until he tells us.
Alright. So we headed over and picked up a mooring ball by the Mango Café. Neither of us had had a decent night’s sleep in days, so we had no intention of doing anything other than getting a nice, long night of sleep in the same bed at the same time. There was no navigating to do, no sail trimming, no going out in the rain in the dark, just sweet, sweet sleep.
So nice to be back in the tropics!
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